Archive for the ‘Christian Living’ Category
By Adam Groza
The Times London once invited several prominent authors to write a response to the question “What’s wrong with the world.” Christian author G. K. Chesterton submitted the following:
Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton echoes Paul: “Sin is the problem and I am the chief sinner”. Not what the editors were expecting. Self-deprecating humor is socially acceptable because it’s taken with the general understanding that we really don’t think we are bad people. Only for the sake of laughs to we expose (and usually exaggerate) our foibles.
But Chesterton isn’t joking, and he isn’t exaggerating. He is making a statement about human depravity, but in a way which makes us uncomfortable. We usually don’t mind affirming human sinfulness, but it is far more uncomfortable to acknowledge my sinfulness, that I am a willing rebel against the God of the universe and deserving of His wrath.
Think about it. How would you answer this question: What is wrong with the world? My first reaction would be sin, but not my own sin. I tend to see my own faults after I have railed against others. Once I have exhausted the reserves of frustration with other people’s evils I add as an afterthought, “Well, I’m a sinner too.”
But Chesterton voices the Christian confession. Not that sin is a problem in general, but that my sin is causes pain and suffering in the world and negatively affects my family, workplace, church, etc. The Christian identifies with both sinners and saints: Simul justus et peccator.
Accepting our role as willing participant in cosmic rebellion allows us to see in ourselves no good thing and in Christ all beauty and righteousness. There are essentially two ways of dealing with the tragedy of sin and pain. We can follow Oscar Wilde, who advocated (as Robert Herrick wrote) that we gather rosebuds while there is time: Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Or we can take up our cross, confess our sins, and follow the Master into the kingdom. But in order to take up the cross of discipleship, we must make a stunning confession:
I am wrong with the world.
- Read G.K. Chesterton
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Mar
31
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C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity:
Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
I’m sure that many in our day and state of mind will think that Lews is either misguided, exaggerated or both. We’re taught to have pride from the womb: pride of our family heritage, pride of our school, pride of our state, pride of our country, pride the brand of truck we drive (at least here in TX), pride of the sports team we watch. We value the “self-made” person. We’re even proud of the church we attend.
One of the most dangerous things about pride is that it is one of the few sins that blinds us to its presence. We know when we drink too much. We know when we speed in our cars. We know when we lust. But we rarely (at least initially) know when we are infected with pride. At least part of the reason for this is, as Lewis points out: “Pride is essentially competitive.” In other words, pride demonstrates itself by having more of something than someone else, doing something better than someone else. If everyone had the same thing, there would be no basis for pride. If everyone were equally talented, there would be no basis for pride. Pride is often focused on others, therefore we sometimes don’t realize its presence.
But there are other reasons why pride can be difficult to spot (and therefore so deadly). Pride can often appear religious. Pride can, in fact, help us overcome other sins, therefore appearing good. As Lewis argues:
Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy’s Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect to make him behave decently; many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity - that is, by Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride.
Lewis laments: “It is a terrible thing that the worst of all vices can smuggle itself into the very center of our religious life.” But this is quite often exactly what happens. Many pews are filled with people whose hearts are filled with pride and whose lives are filled with lists of rules and regulations and whose eyes glance in judgment. Legalism is one of the most deadly weapons in the arsenal of pride. Beware of any church that tells you you cannot be a member over something Scripture allows. Such churches, though thinking themselves the most holy have actually denied the Gospel by adding to it.
This is interesting, isn’t it that the ones who often come across as the most holy are in fact the worst off. These are often the ones who don’t fathom the depth of their own sin because, as Lewis points out, out of pride, they have been able to conquer many “weaker” sins that enslave so many, all the while being eaten from the inside out by the cancer of pride. As Lewis warns:
Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty, object.
The only antidote is God. We must see God who who He truly is and only then will we see ourselves for who we truly are. Pride is the complete distortion of this, elevating self and lowering God (and others). Unless we understand that God is immeasurably greater than any of our aspirations we do not truly know Him. Unless we see Him “high and lifted up” with the refrain of “I am undone,” we do not know Him. It must bring a chill to our souls that there will be some who come to Christ at the Day of Judgment only to hear those eternally stinging words “Depart from Me for I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23).
We continually warn against the dangers out there. But I wonder how well we guard against the dangers in here?
Our Care Groups this year are in the midst of an in-depth study of the life and ministry of Jesus using a modified harmony of the Gospels approach. It is a chronological study of the Jesus’ life and has been both challenging and refreshing, especially realizing how often Jesus does not match our conceptions. Last week, Kristi and I were in one of the groups discussing Jesus’ calming of the storm found in Matthew 8:23-27:
And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?
The question was asked about how we know when we’re expressing faith and trust in Christ. The answer we were discussing was that where we turn in times of trouble reveals a lot about where our faith is placed. While this is true, it set me to thinking because the disciples did go to Jesus and He still rebuked them. Why? What did they do wrong? What should they have done differently, should they have just kept on sailing through the storm but do so calmly?
At that point, several Scriptures poked their way through my wonderings. The first part of Psalm 46:10 was the first to peek through: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 127:2 was next: “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” You can tell where my mind was going. What should the disciples have done in the midst of the storm? After all, they did go to Jesus for help. They should have crawled up right beside Him and gone to sleep in the midst of the storm. That would have been the surest demonstration of their faith in Him. If we are called to follow in His footsteps, it seems then that they should have done what He did.
This does not mean that those of you who have trouble sleeping are necessarily in sin. Nor does it mean that you should just lie down and take a nap in the midst of whatever struggle you might be enduring. But it does remind us just how radical the call to follow Jesus really is. Was He exaggerating when He said told us not to be anxious (Matthew 6:25-34) or did He really mean it? Especially for those of us who claim to believe in the absolute goodness and absolute sovereignty of God; our lives rarely display this kind of confidence.
If we truly trust the Lord, sometimes we just need to go to sleep (both literally and figuratively). Let’s be honest, chances are that He’s going to accomplish more when we’re asleep than awake anyways!
By Adam Groza
Recently, I have enjoyed some good conversation with friends about raising our little girls to be godly women. Of course, this will ultimately depend on the working of the Spirit in their lives. But in everyday life, from cloths to comments, actions have consequences. This is true for boys and girls, of course. But my interest here is to share some comments on raising little girls to be godly women. Since Brent is only capable of producing male offspring and has of yet been denied the wonderful privilege of a daughter, I will leave him to comments on raising little boys☺.
So I start with the assumption that the bible defines what it looks like to be a godly woman in such places as Proverbs 31. I will leave you to read that passage, and move ahead to ask the question, “How do we parents encourage our little girls onto a godly path?” I think that answering this will require two sorts of things, the first positive and the second negative.
Positively we must love them, which in Biblical sense, means that we care for them as God has cared for us. Just as God teaches us and reveals truth to us, so too we must teach our daughters. From the earliest age, we must instruct them. Deuteronomy chapter six tells us that this teaching must permeate our home. Dish-washing times are teaching times. So we teach as we live, but we also are intentional about designating time to teach. God has done this for the church in setting aside a day for worship and rest. So too, I think fathers do well to set aside a time of day to have a time of family worship, to teach your children to pray, sing, study, and teach Scripture in the act of praying, singing, reading, and teaching Scripture. When does your family do this and how have you structured it to (practically speaking) work for you?
Yet teaching cannot be detached from affection. God‘s character includes dispositions analogous to human emotions. He loves us, cares for us, and provides for us. Revealed truth detached from loving-kindness would improperly reflect the Father and would likely fail to effectuate a desire for the truth. God is sovereign, but he uses tender interaction to develop love for Himself and our negligence can have adverse consequences. I am of the opinion that little girls especially, because they are the weaker sex (1 Peter 3:7), must be taught and loved with a tenderness and sense of protection which leads them to delight in God.
These are things (though hardly exhaustive) we must do positively to love our little girls such that they become godly women. But there are things that we must avoid as well. There are certain cultural land mines that I intuitively believe will push our daughters from Christ.
First, it seems to me that busyness will destroy the heart of a little girl, especially a father who teaches, hugs, and then leaves. For those of us blessed to have wives who stay at home, our time at home is limited but our ability to give attention to the scribbles, the “ouchies”, and the tea-parties are of critical importance to a little girl. Ministry and work cannot be an excuse for perpetual absence. I am pretty sure any daughter would prefer a no-name poor father who is present than an evangelical celebrity or corporate mountain-mover who is absent. In fact, I venture to guess that our absence might fuel bitterness rather than godly affection and admiration, especially if we are gone in the name of Jesus.
Second, we must guard them from vanity and materialism when they are young. If we want teenage girls who are modest we must dress them modestly when young and tell them how pretty they look when their bodies are covered. It means we don’t let them wear pants with words across the bottom (such as “cutie”) that direct people’s eyes to our daughter’s backside: Unbelievable! Moreover, we must keep them, as much as possible, from the constant media barrage of “princess imagery” that most girls will never obtain without surgery. One thought shared to me by a pastor is to tell our girls they are “pretty” but not “the prettiest girl in the world”. The latter statement instills a sense of beauty by comparison rather than creation and relation. Of course, our only beauty is the righteousness of Christ which is owed completely to our (new) creation and relation to Christ. So too little girls should be pretty to their father: Not because other girls are not pretty or because they are pretty in relation to others but because they are our daughters and beautiful in our eyes.
Lastly, I have been thinking a lot about having a little girl and training her to be content in living simply, which is to say, not materialistic. How do I train my daughter such that one day in the future her husband could say “I think God is leading us to sell our home and cars and go on the mission field” so that she would respond “Yes, let’s go” without a moment’s thought for the material loss she will incur. So loving our daughters to become godly women would include, I think, helping them to be content with less; less toys, less shoes, less cloths, and less stuff. It seems to me that God limits our possessions to teach us dependency. He can give us more, but his love won’t allow it because we need to learn to live with a certain detachment from the things of this world even as we have a healthy appreciation for those same passing thing. So maybe we love our daughters in a more godly way when we buy them a used dress and tell them they look pretty rather than the most expensive dress. We could tell her that the money saved can go to help other kids and/or share the gospel around the world. This does two things: Instills (hopefully) a sense of simplicity and a love for missions. I think the two go hand in hand.
So these are just thoughts about raising daughters to be godly women. Many of you know much more than I on the subject, so I welcome your thoughts and comments.
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Mar
12
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One of the things I’ve been pondering much lately is the connection between the “Kingdom of God” and salvation. I’ve come to believe that we have, perhaps inadvertently, cheapened what salvation truly is. We have lessened it both in scope and impact and turned it into something purely “personal” and internal. We have so stressed the idea of eternal deliverance from hell that salvation has come to have little if any impact on this side of glory. We certainly do not preach salvation in terms of kingdom conflict, but this is one of the primary themes of the New Testament.
I’ve been meditating particularly a bit on the implications of the idea of Kingdom as it relates to believers and our continuing struggle(s) against sin. The Bible certainly describes salvation in terms of being rescued from the kingdom of darkness and delivered into Christ’s Kingdom. Consider Colossians 1:13:
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son
But the Bible goes even further (or should that be farther?) in its depictions of salvation. According to Scripture, not only are we made citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven (Philippians 3:20), we are made heirs, along with Christ (Romans 8:12-17, Galatians 3:29, etc.).
The more I meditate upon this reality, the more serious the issue of sin becomes for me. Think about the implications of what Scripture teaches. Sin among believers is nothing less than treason. It is the heir of one kingdom (the Kingdom of Christ) proclaiming allegiance to another (the domain of darkness), the very kingdom from which they (we) have just been freed. When we choose sin (We are never made to sin. We sin because we choose to), we are no different than the just-freed Israelites saying that it was better in Egypt (Exodus 14:12, Numbers 11:18, etc.), that it was better in slavery.
The more I meditate upon the implications of the Kingdom, the more I am becoming convinced that it strengthens, deepens and intensifies the implications of salvation for our lives. This is interesting (at least to me), seeing that, the move away from this approach, the move towards an emphasis on “escape from eternal damnation” actually seems to cheapen the very doctrines it was meant to intensify. I wonder your thoughts on this.
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Mar
11
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Some time ago I reviewed and interacted a bit with the Modern Parables DVD series. Subtitled “Living in the Kingdom,” the series reminded me just how many of Jesus’ parables are centered around the idea of the kingdom of God. Yesterday’s post also reminded us just how central to Jesus’ teaching the idea of the Kingdom truly is.
And yet, this seems to be a foreign concept in much of our understanding of salvation. To the modern sophisticate, salvation has become something merely and completely personal. It is your personal “salvation experience” and it is about you going to heaven. Yet, it seems that the biblical proclamation of the Gospel was not only much less individualistic, but also more kingdom oriented. Jesus’ message was about the arrival of the Kingdom.
This can be seen by the way Jesus introduces many of the parables: “The kingdom of heaven is like” (Matthew 13:31, etc.). This ought to immediately raise the concern that we have quite possibly misunderstood many of Jesus’ parables because we have misunderstood the Kingdom. Jesus Himself says that understanding the Kingdom is the purpose of a good deal of the parables and yet, it’s almost as if we simply pick, choose and ignore His words as we see fit, turning the parables into nice little morality tales removing any notion of “kingdom” from them.
Much of this seems to be because we have come to believe that the kingdom of God is only future. We’ve limited it to a literal 1,000 years of Jesus literally reigning from a physical throne literally in Jerusalem. Anything otherwise, and we’re told we don’t believe in the literal interpretation of Scripture. But this neglects Jesus’ own message that men, women, boys and girls were to repent, because the arrival of Jesus signaled the arrival of the kingdom itself (Matthew 3:2, etc.).
Of course, the Kingdom has not arrived in its fullest sense. We are not yet fully glorified. We still struggle with sin. We still trip through thorns and thistles and bow under the weight of death and decay. However, to deny that the Kingdom has come in its initial phases is to deny the teaching of New Testament itself. Jesus’ continually attached the Kingdom to His person and Work. John the Baptist questioned because the Kingdom didn’t look like what he thought it should. He expected Jesus to save His people and judge His enemies. For John and many others, this meant a physical deliverance bringing a physical kingdom. Yet, when he doubted, Jesus responded by telling Jesus that the exact things John looked for to signal the arrival of the Kingdom had come: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:3-5). In other words, when John thought that it didn’t look like what he expected, Jesus responded by assuring him that the Kingdom had, in fact, come, because the King had come.
We find ourselves in the “in between” time. When the Kingdom has already come but not yet in its fullness. Jesus meant it when He said that the parables were about the Kingdom because He understood the Kingdom to be present. This is why Paul can speak of salvation as being delivered “from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Salvation is about the Kingdom and we will only begin to fully grasp the dramatic nature many of the parables when we understand this.
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Mar
10
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Today we continue our series of challenges from the words of Jesus. So far we’ve been challenged specifically from the Sermon on the Mount but today we branch out a bit to consider the broader implications of one of Jesus’ many statements regarding the Kingdom of God and its arrival, an aspect sorely missing from much our our current gospel understanding and presentation.
Today’s challenge comes from Matthew 12:28-20:
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Think about the implications if Jesus really meant what He said: the kingdom of God is here and Jesus is plundering Satan’s house because he has bound him. Sort of wreaks havoc on much of our modern theological understanding, doesn’t it?
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Mar
03
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Last week I started what will most likely be a sporadic series. The goal is simply to present some of the sayings of Jesus while asking the question “What if He really meant it?” Far too often, we approach Jesus as if He didn’t actually mean what He said as He said it and that we are free to explain away the challenging parts. Not necessarily the parts that are challenging in a way that is hard to understand, but challenging in a different way, forcing us to ask, “would I live differently if I really believed Him at His Word?”
Though the focus of the series is not necessarily the Sermon on the Mount, this week’s saying (like last week’s) comes from that section. Often known as an address on “kingdom living,” the Sermon on the Mount contains many of Jesus’ most challenging sayings. What if He really meant what He said when He said in these two sayings:
You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire (Matthew 5:21-22).
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28).
Both of these sayings demonstrate the true intent of the Law, that it was always about the heart rather than merely the external behavior. What even Jesus meant it? Do you live like you think He did? It’s interesting how the little question “What if He really meant it?” forces us to sometimes view the text a bit differently (or at least it should).
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Feb
26
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By Adam Groza
This will be a short post with a simple message: Christians need to stop reading blogs that practice slander and gossip. I am basing this on St. Paul’s words in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 5:11. St. Paul makes is clear in the beginning of the verse that he is talking about so-called Christians; that is, people who profess to be saved but by their unrepentant lifestyle prove they are not members of the Redeemed (the new lump, verse 7). Specifically, Paul mentions in verse 11 the sins of immorality (pornos, or fornication), covetousness, idolatry, reviling, drunkenness, or swindling. Paul says we are not to associate with such a person, not to even eat with such a one. There is debate as to whether the Supper is in view in this latter prohibition, but for my purposes, Christians are first commanded by St. Paul not to associate with such people who (1) claim to be Christians and (2) exhibit such unrepentant ways.
There is a practical application of this verse in regard to blogs that generate readership by reviling people, especially (but not limited to) those whom God has put in authority, such as pastors, religious, or government authorities. The Bible is clear that God establishes those in authority over us, and our respect for God is demonstrated in our submission to them (1 Peter 2:13-15). People who revile others are not Christians (1 Corinthians 6:10). Those who verbally abuse or blaspheme others will not inherit the kingdom.
Some blogs have literally become popular for the kind of scoffing mentioned in Psalm 1. Spurgeon says that those who tempt others sit in the seat of the scornful. Many blogs daily tempt Christians to engage in gossip and slander, or to take joy in other peoples troubles. Spurgeon calls such tempters the “Doctors of Damnation”. The Psalmist warns that those who scorn and revile will not stand on the Day of Judgment. If we have interaction with people who contribute to online slander and gossip we should witness to them because they need to be redeemed. Furthermore, their churches are negligent for not practicing church discipline.
St. Paul commands followers of Christ to have no association with those who revile others. In the same way that you should leave or stop a conversation in which someone is being reviled or blasphemed so too Christians should avoid such blogs. If you enjoy listening to gossip in a traditional conversation you sin, being yourself guilty of gossip. Having nothing to do with those who revile means walking away from conversations in which people are being attacked and I am suggesting it means we avoid online sites that engage in gossip and slander.
Praise God for friends like Brent who use their sites to help us reflect on the glorious truth of God as it relates to life and culture but not at the expense of others. Don’t let your internet traffic be the fuel for the online fire of slander.
- Read When People Are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch
- Read Speaking The Truth in Love by David Powlison
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Feb
21
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I’ve been thinking a bit more about some of the ideas presented with Psalm 127 (see here), particularly in light of influencing our children and the imagery of aiming them as arrows in spiritual warfare. Parents must refuse the culture’s insistence that children are an interruption in our “real” interests, pursuits and lives. We must first believe that children are a blessing before we can live like it, then we must take seriously, not just the education but the formation of our children.
I hate that I have to make this caveat, but I do. It is not my intention to dictate your conscience or that of your family. My wife and I have come to the conviction that, for us, home-education is our current choice. I do sometimes share the reasons why we have come to those convictions, but not as an agenda for home-education. I know that many well-meaning Christians say that if you don’t educate your children at home that you are somehow “giving in.” I don’t believe that. It is not my intention to change anyone’s conscience on this issue, just to share some of the things that have shaped ours.
One of the first things that comes to the fore of many home education conversations is the idea of socialization. The charge, of course, is that children educated at home will lack the necessary social skills needed to be active and productive members of society. But it shouldn’t take most of us long to realize that much of the “socialization” we received in public schools (for those of us who attended public schools) was anything but positive. In fact, thinking back a bit on my own “socialization,” a certain proverb comes to mind (13:20):
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
It’s not necessary to discuss whether I was the companion or the fool or both. But what is necessary to discuss is that Christians must be able to think and respond biblically to such arguments as the “socialization” argument. When we consent to allow others to raise and influence our children, much less, when we allow some of their biggest influences to be their peers, it with much less confidence that we can say they are walking with the wise.
A quick listen to the conversation of many young people (though it’s certainly not age-discriminate) should convince us that “the mouths of fools pour out folly” (Proverbs 15:2) and a quick trip down memory lane ought to remind us that “bad company ruins good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Surely this just goes with common sense. If you stand on a chair and try to pull someone up to you who is on the ground trying to pull you down, who is going to win? It’s much easier to pull someone down than it is to pull someone up, especially someone who does not want to be pulled up. Put your child in a room full of kids who don’t want to be “pulled up” and now we’re told that this developing their social skills.
If Deuteronomy 6 teaches us anything, surely it teaches us that parents are to have the primary role in the formation of their children and despite what our society tells us, this certainly means spending time with our children pouring into them, because if we’re not, someone else is.
All of this is to simply point out that the “socialization” argument against home education is only convincing if we want children who think and act like the rest of the world. The truth is that social skills derive from a variety of settings and situations and if we’re raising children to be adults, shouldn’t they receive more social input from adults than peers? This used to be the norm, as children either worked on the farm with adults or followed in their father’s profession, but since then, we have come to believe that it is healthy for them to be surrounded by people their own age with the same weaknesses.
The church must do better at encouraging and equipping parents to think through these and other issues from a biblical foundation to pursue biblical standards.
